Those we love don’t go away and walk beside us everyday… unseen, unheard but always near, still loved, still missed and very dear. Last year, my auntie died of cancer. She’d been sick and receiving treatment for four months. She lived in Australia with her adoring husband. My family watched her go through senseless pain via FaceTime, every day. I watched her slowly deteriorate and I could see the fear in her eyes even when she laughed. One of the few things I hate in life is watching a person become so immune to bleak surroundings that they even find it hard to see the sun rise in the morning. I suppose that’s a normal response to human suffering, and you’d expect to feel the same way, but with Lulu, it was a completely deeper kind of hurt that I felt. I saw her spirits rise and fall depending on what kind of day she was having. The doctors had her on morphine and steroids so that she could die in comfort. (This last sentence is out of context, so I wouldn’t place it here.)

I remember a few months before she died, my mother warned me and my brothers that Lulu wouldn’t be around for much longer. I still remember the utter hurt and anguish I felt inside of me that morning. At first I was incredulous. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to believe that she would die, rather that I actually didn’t believe that she could die. ‘These types of things dont happen to young women like Lulu, she is only forty’, I thought . We all cried when we learned her illness was terminal, losing all sense of ambition. The world around me seemed to crumble to the ground. A sense of depression lingered at home. Every night I heard my mother cry herself to sleep. A stark reminder of the volatility of the world inside our walls.

One morning before school, when I was feeling exceptionally down, I staggered down to the field beside my house, alone, my head buried in my knees. I felt safe in this field. (Unbeknownst to myself at that moment, in just a few months when my dearest aunt would have left us for another world, I would come back and look around this field, hopeless, looking for a context, picking her a bunch of flowers hoping she would somehow notice I left them there for her.). My cries and screams, my only company. I fell to my knees, hands rooted in cold, hard terrain. I felt a flood of salty droplets devouring my roasted and reddened face.

School had become unbearable to sit through. Everyone had heard the news. It had spread through the halls like a wild unstoppable blaze in an unsuspecting forest. On the breaks of class, I walked among the shadows in the school halls. I was hurting, and hurting badly. I couldn’t fathom the idea that someone so youthful could be taken captive of the world we live in. I realised that if this was the amount of hurt and anguish I felt, how was Lulu feeling? She must have been terrified. Aware that every moment could be her last. Every morning she wakes could be her last. Every wave goodbye could be her last. Every kiss goodnight could be her last. Lying in her bed knowing that the dream she was about to have while sleeping could be her last. Knowing that the last breath she takes while dozing off could be her last. That thought broke my heart into a thousand pieces. The life I lived was so easy compared to hers.

One morning my mother approached me about a decision that I thought I would never have to make: did I want to see my auntie in her coffin. My first response was to say no. My inner child was screaming ‘no, keep the good memories whole, don’t tarnish them or give yourself a reason to feel more bruised’. I tossed and turned that night wondering what was the best decision for me. The FaceTime call was the next morning at ten o’clock and I felt my stomach turn inside-out thinking about what would face me through that glass screen. Would it help me to accept it? How could I believe in a good world, while staring my auntie in her final place of rest? I decided against it after reflecting on the pros and cons. Was I brave enough? I’m only 16, how do I know what I want?

That morning I woke up early and opened the curtains, the sun beaming like I had never seen it beam before. A beautiful, peaceful butterfly, lonely for a context, flew past the window. It was as if that was Lulu’s way of telling me she was okay, free from suffering. As weird as it may sound, I felt her presence in the room with me. I heard her calling my name. I knew then, exactly what I had to do. She had made the decision for me. At ten o’clock her husband Andrew called. The most purposeful trip I’d ever taken down to the sitting room.

The moment I saw her through the iPad screen, tears streamed down my face. Dazed, I sat there. This was all so surreal. Was this really happening? Seeing my dead auntie through a computer screen? I stared at the youth and beauty in her face, I felt every moment we shared together become a treasure and every hug we had together become a blessing. I thought back to when she was visiting Ireland before she got sick a few years prior, around Christmas time. She was collecting me from maths grinds and I told her that there was a Christmas jumper day in school the next day. I didn’t have a Christmas jumper at the time and she dragged me into Penneys at 8 o’clock at night and bought me a brand new tacky one, with sparkles and fairy lights on it. I remember the beaming smile on her face and happiness in her eyes as I showed my family our purchase. She used to plait my cousin’s and my hair. We begged her to every time we saw her… although most of the time she offered. To me, there was nothing more comforting than her hands combing through my thin hair.

I remembered throwing flowers at her in her elegant lace wedding dress, as her stunning smile lit up the room and her laugh floated through the air like a melody.

The room was small. There was a table on the left with a prayer book and a blazing candle. Straight ahead was her open casket; she lay inside, surrounded by flowers, wearing her wedding dress, with her hands crossed on her stomach, her face made up. Her mouth was turned down at the corners and her hands looked fake. In that one step to bravery, I not only saw my beloved aunt but I held her hand and saw her soul which was always the most precious part of her being, I smiled at her and she smiled at me. That smile still fuels my life every day. How didn’t I know what I wanted? Why was I so uncertain? I realised it was no fault of my own, grieving is a natural process. Everyone suffers in completely different ways. The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but, you will never be the same, nor would you want to be. Every rainbow needs the rain, as much as it needs the sunlight. With every dark cloud, there is a sun somewhere behind to shine brighter than ever.